


A Storm At Dawn - Part 1

by LymneirianApparition



Series: A Storm At Dawn [1]
Category: Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Blood and Violence, F/F, Girls Kissing, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Character of Color
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 19:07:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11469810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LymneirianApparition/pseuds/LymneirianApparition
Summary: The follow-up to the "Like A Breeze In The Night" begins. Channa Ti encounters one of her canonical enemies, Simoun goes over the edge, and Seelah struggles to keep order as they learn about the two factions they've stumbled in the middle of.





	A Storm At Dawn - Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story references events found in the Pathfinder novella "Second Darkness" by Elaine Cunningham and published by Paizo, Inc.
> 
> Some of Simoun's abilities in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, where she was introduced, only makes sense if she has dabbled in an Arcane spellcasting class in addition to being a Rogue, but not one that grants significant Arcane power. Her flavor text explains that she learned to fight among tribal warriors before embarking on her career as a thief. Based on these clues, I present her as having the traits and abilities of a low-level Bloodrager in addition to her more familiar Rogue abilities.

A Storm At Dawn – Part 1

The Paladin Seelah had heard now and then that desert Orcs were a thing. But for some reason she never thought she'd see any in Osirion, despite their half-blood descendants being as prevalent there as anywhere else. The place just seemed too dignified for the massive engines of destruction on two legs that pureblood Orcs were to even exist within its borders. 

Ducking one spike-covered fist while barely deflecting another with her shield, she cursed her own naive narrow-mindedness. The two reddish-brown skinned hulks were lightly armored, but with spikes bolted onto every available surface of that armor, they were more than protected. Gladiators; pit fighters, and judging from the resemblance, brothers from the same litter. Humanoid beasts that had been brawling with each other since they were in the womb. Slow and stupid by Human standards, these two displayed evil cunning in spades, switching tactics and fighting styles every few seconds to successfully keep Seelah and her companions at bay.

Case in point: Simoun the Sylph Rogue hacked into the back of one of them for the third time, her kopis blade spraying a satisfying amount of blood as it rose out of the wound; the Sylph's blue-lined face contorted with hateful rage. The Orc barely noticed. Notorious for shrugging off lethal wounds, you could rain down a half-dozen guaranteed death blows on an Orc before landing the one that actually mattered. But for each one that failed to do so, you paid. As Simoun did now. With surprising grace, the battlescarred Orc mule-kicked and knocked the wind out of the Air-blooded woman, forcing her to stagger away wheezing.

Seelah's concern for her lover cost her. The other Orc's mailed fist gouged the armor of her right arm, transferring stress into the muscle and bone beneath. Her arm burning and the sword now feeling too heavy to lift, Seelah called out to the Inheritor to formally Smite these unbelievers, turning her righteousness against the very wickedness of their hearts. This boost to her power let Seelah hold the two brutes at bay until help came.

The other six henchmen in the corridor of the empty dockside building had probably thought a lone woman would be no match for them. That woman now bounding into the room wearing the form of a lion told Seelah they had been wrong. The Orc bellowed in pain and surprise as predatory fangs latched into his neck from behind. Letting her aching sword arm fall slack, Seelah slammed the metal edge of her shield into the Orc's captive face and he fell slack in the lion's jaws like a puppet.

Orcs didn't die easily. But if you hit them just right, they could get knocked unconscious like anybody else.

The lioness dropped her puppet and lunged past Seelah, slamming headlong into the other Orc as he rallied for a counterattack. The force of impact from the big cat sent him reeling, right into the sharp point of Simoun's elbow aimed right at the base of his skull. The Brawler staggered a few more steps from this latest impact, then fell as comatose as his brother.

While the lioness whorled and blurred back into the Half-Elven shape of the Druid Channa Ti, Seelah winced as she channeled her goddess's healing magic to set her damaged arm back to rights. She was about to say they needed to awaken the prisoners in order to interrogate them when Simoun startled both of them, shrieking and swinging her kopis seemingly at nothing. She imbued the blade with elemental air as she swung, electricity arcing off of it... and into the unseen body of the person it struck.

A female voice grunted in pain and surprise. Channa Ti, her mind still recovering from its feline transformation, pounced and tore at the thing with her nails, hissing and growling. The figure instinctively tried to fight back – the bane of all Invisibility spells – and a whip-thin woman with henna-dyed skin faded into view. Simoun came out of her rage, watching as the taller, stronger Channa Ti wrestled her foe to the ground. Seelah moved to pull the Druid off lest her atavistic assault turn murderous, but she didn't have to. The Druid's eyes – already large and almond-shaped from her Elven heritage – widened to immense proportions. Seelah had never seen her beloved so astonished. Indeed, she was always the most collected and methodical of the three when not shapeshifted. The panicked look came and went quickly, though, replaced by righteous anger.

“YOU!”

The hennaed woman seemed not surprised at all. “Hello, Channa Ti.”

Seelah hovered her blade over the captive while Channa Ti got up. Simoun just glared at the woman on the ground with unmasked hatred. “You know this mage?” the Paladin asked.

“You flatter me, to call me a mage,” the woman countered. “Anyone can quaff an Invisibility potion, which I wouldn't have wasted if I knew your wispy friend here had such good ears.”

“You want good ears? There's your good ear, you cunt!” Pain rang across the woman's features as Simoun kicked her in the side of the head.

_“Simoun!”_ Seelah hadn't taken that tone or narrowed her eyes at the Rogue in such a way for a long time and it was enough to give Simoun pause, but the hatred in her eyes did not diminish.

“A kick to the head is the least she deserves,” Channa Ti warned. “Yes, I know her. Last time I saw her she was going by the name Rees. I helped her escape from slavery. She repaid me for framing me for the murder of the woman who sold her into slavery to begin with.”

“She's not telling you everything,” Rees grunted, hand pressed to her stinging ear. “Tell them, Channa. Tell them how you also framed _me_ for murder! That you had planned to all along by stealing my pendant!”

“That was insurance: insurance you forced me to use when I heard the criers rallying the population to hunt me down. And unlike you, I didn't actually kill the person whose body I left your pendant next to. I knew you'd turn against me, Rees. I was just surprised at how fast you managed to do it.”

“You act like you were in danger,” Rees countered. “A woman of your skill and power, I knew you'd get out of the spot I put you in easily. I wouldn't have put you in it if I hadn't. I didn't take you for someone who would take things so personally. Not that any of it matters seeing as how we clearly both got off that island.” 

Her eyes grew curious.

“How _did_ you get off that island, anyway?”

“The usual. Turned into a crocodile and swam away. Speaking of crocodiles, let's talk about one by the name of Sebti, high priestess of the Grand Mausoleum. She'd be very interested to know about your activity in the Necropolis, as well as your new friends who creep around there: the men with scars over their hearts? Talk.”

Rees's eyes were as flat as her voice. “They're not my friends any more than they are yours. I don't know what they've been doing there.”

Simoun rolled her eyes as she impatiently shifted from foot to foot. Her knuckles whitened upon the curved handle of her forward-swept blade. “Are we really going to stand here and play these games? I've been ready to cut this bitch ever since the part where she framed you for murder, Channa Ti.”

“Simoun.” Seelah's voice had an edge of knapped obsidian to it. The Rogue kept shifting her weight but said nothing. Rees, on the other hand, grew more helpful.

“They're supposedly some offshoot of the Forgotten Pharoah cult, but they don't follow him anymore, just some variant of the sick mummification magics the ancient Osirions did. I've been trying to gather intelligence on them. Her pale eyes scanned to the unconscious Orcs. "Vigga and Baizon Kuff were my protection for when they inevitably took notice.”

“Self-mutilating cultists, Orc mercenaries,” Channa Ti calculated. “That's some awfully rough company for a delicate flower who doesn't like it any rougher than a night with a few randy sailors. Who are you working for?”

“Someone who wants something and the cultists are in the way.”

“Those cultists have slain innocent people and attacked us,” Seelah said with her judicious air. “If they're in Wati then we're not safe, the people of this town aren't safe. And if they want anything out of the Necropolis then I can't imagine your employer having any more wholesome purpose for it than they do.”

Rees sneered at the Druid. “A sanctimonious one and a hothead. With all your nature's balance claptrap you must be just the hypotenuse of this little triangle, aren't you, Channa Ti? I'll bet you sleep in the middle.”

Simoun snarled and lunged to kick her in the head again. Seelah blocked her, her sword wavering from Rees' throat for just a second. A second was all she needed. The former slave bolted like a cat, shoulder-checking Channa Ti in the abdomen as she bounded to her feet. While the Druid doubled in pain, the willowy woman shot toward the exit like a champion sprinter just as Simoun squirmed past the armored Paladin.

With another snarl of fury Simoun whipped her chakram from her belt and the air sang with metal. The ring of steel embedded itself in the plaster wall just beside the doorway, just as Rees got there, just as her pumping arm came up. She stopped but her right hand kept on going, hitting the dirty floor a few meters away, fingers twitching. Shock overcoming her, Rees fell hard on her knees, clutching the stump from which her hand and half her forearm were now missing.

_“Inheritor's blade, Simoun! What did you DO?”_

Seelah didn't wait for an answer. She strode toward the maimed woman to offer aid, but Rees had already yanked a scroll case from her belt with her surviving hand. Her teeth seized a leather loop on the cap and popped it off. Trembling, her face bleaching, she produced a papyrus sheet that immediately became defiled with gore. But she managed to read the words even as Seelah reached her and futilely ordered her to stop. An aperture of green light seemed to yawn for Rees and then she just _slid out_ of the world, reality pouring in like concrete over the null-space where she had just been.

“Dimension Door spell,” Channa Ti explained as she joined the Paladin, arm wrapped round her abdomen. “You could live comfortably in Midwife District for a year on what a magic scroll that powerful costs. What has Rees gotten herself _into?_ ”

“I'll tell you what she won't be getting into,” said a breathy Simoun as she sauntered up and retrieved her chakram from the blood spray on the wall. “Playing a musical instrument that requires two hands!”

Seelah turned on her Sylph companion, got inches from her face. _“What in the Hells is WRONG with you!?_ You've been sulking and spoiling for violence for weeks now and look at what it's come to! We had the interrogation under control. Now thanks to you she's escaped, plus you've gone and maimed her!”

“Maimed?” spat the incredulous Rogue, who then pointed at Seelah's sword. “Do you not lop off arms and legs with that thing? Or has something been wrong with my eyesight the times I've seen you do it?”

Seelah shook her head, giving no quarter. “Not to people who have no weapons and are running away! We are not out here for you to indulge in your anger! There are a pack of killers running around the city! They've hurt us, hurt people we know, and they're doing something bad. That is what we're here for, Simoun! We're not just serving you up a buffet of people to beat to a pulp because you're mad that a girl you picked up one night didn't stick around!”

“How dare you,” Simoun hissed, the sting seeping into her words. “If I didn't love you so gods-damned much, right now I'd--”

Channa Ti's voice rose clear and solid above the quarrel, its very neutrality giving both the other women pause. “Dimension Door is powerful, but it's not all-powerful. She will still be very close by. But she's wounded, obviously, and losing a lot of blood. Seelah, if you look along the canal on the south side of here Simoun and I can take the north--”

But Simoun was already barging past the Druid. _“You_ two take the south side, and pray _you_ find her. Because if _I_ do it _will_ be a fucking buffet!”

From the doorway Simoun's two lovers watched her recede like an angry sandstorm fleeing the dawn's light until she turned the corner at the end of the hall and disappeared. She had stepped in the blood of one of the victims of Channa Ti's lionness rampage and left an eerie trail of bloody left footprints with nothing to mirror them on the right.

Channa Ti spared the carnage in the hallway glance before looking at the humps on the floor of the room that were the semi-comatose Kuff brothers. “What do you want to do about them?”

“We'll leave them to the city guard. Although if we do that we probably shouldn't leave the severed hand.”

“No. Leave it. Blame it on them.” The Druid then elaborated in response to the Paladin's questioning look. “They're Orcs. If we say it's theirs the guards will just assume it was their lunch.”

Not feeling like trying to learn if she was joking, Seelah looked back down at the bodies in the hallway. “How many did you fight while Simoun and I were fighting the Orcs in there?”

“Six.”

“And you felled them all?”

“Yep.”

“But now there are five bodies.”

“Yep.”

Seelah shook her head and began walking up the hallway the way Simoun had gone. But she turned to Channa Ti just after they stepped over the tangle of bodies.

“If you're going to give me one of your Druid speeches about how cruel nature is and how right and wrong don't matter, I don't want to hear it. She's out of control right now and you know it.”

“I wasn't going to give you that speech. I agree with you.”

“Oh. Well that's a first.”

“Nature has cruelty, but also beauty. The world is better when Simoun is a part of that beauty.”

“I couldn't agree with you more.”

“You've never agreed with me at all.”

“That's fair. Us both being in love with the same woman does strange things to us, doesn't it?”

They turned the corner and Channa Ti spared one last look at the bloody hallway. Flies from the canals were already arriving. “If it does, let's hope that the piles of dead bodies and unattached limbs are unrelated to it.”

Now it was Channa Ti's turn to wonder if Seelah was joking. “Let's hope so,” the Paladin said, not darkly enough to put her at ease. “Let's hope so.”

***

The desert sunset turned the rooftops of Wati into a sculpture in molten gold. Simoun shined like a white diamond among the boiling liquid wealth. Even from a great distance the hawk's eyes noted keen details of her that revealed much, like how she hugged her knees to her chest as though wanting to be protected even under the open sky. Or how she shifted her bare feet on the sun-soaked roof tiles every few seconds. She could have easily picked up her sandals from beside her and put them back on, but it was like she used the heat on her soles as a distraction from some other pain. Then there was the way her eyes stayed fixed on the blue-tiled roof of the House of Dawn's Drift a block away. Just an inn like any other, but memories lurked there, and memories were all Simoun had left.

The hawk alighted next to her and gave the Rogue a moment to comprehend what it actually was before it changed. Startling her into falling three storeys by transforming into a woman would not be a good way to start the conversation. But Simoun did not fall to her death or even give Channa Ti much heed. She just kept staring out over the rooftops, icy walls built around herself that could withstand the desert heat.

The hawk-mind was quicker to recede from Channa Ti's consciousness than some other animal shapes she wore. But still, it was difficult to resist striking at the problem as a hawk would, like lightning from a clear sky. She wanted to seize the problem in her talents, tear at it and bolt its flesh down her throat. _Alright, Simoun, this is how it is!_ She could only wait for the woman-mind to arrive in full and once it did, strive to be the opposite of the unhelpful hawk in all its hunger. 

She started very simply. “Hi.”

Simoun did not look her way: her voice distracted and all but inaudible. “Hi.”

“Seelah thinks you're avoiding her.”

Not a word at all this time, just a shrug of the shoulders.

“In case you're not aware, one of Rees's men escaped along with her. Given that we found no trace of either of them, I'm presuming that they met up, patched each other up, and are still out there. Given how sly Rees is, I am confident she had a rendezvous point complete with triage set up and ready to go in case anything went wrong. By now she'll have told her employer all about us. 

“Because of this, Seelah thinks we should move again. But I am of the opinion that we should stay where we are; try to make them come to us. What do you think we should do?”

Simoun kept staring out over Wati's rooftops, her voice as hot as any of them, hazed with hate. “Tell me why any of this matters!”

Channa Ti trod very carefully. “Tell me why you think it doesn't.”

It was enough to make the Sylph almost look at her. Just slightly. “Rees said that her group and the men who cut out hearts are against each other. Why not just let them tear each other to pieces? Why not just walk away and let the winner take whatever stupid prize it is they're both after? Why is it our problem?”

Having thought Simoun might be feeling this way, Channa Ti already had an answer prepared. “Seelah believes it is the right thing to do. From her point of view the Heart Cutters are bad people. They are murderers. And we have an obligation to stop them because we have the ability to do so. We know that they are willing to kill innocent people, and if we stand by and do nothing while they do, then we will be complicit in those people's deaths.

“My belief is more pragmatic, of course. The Heart Cutters are dangerous. They've already attacked us in the desert. We know what they look like, which makes us a threat to them, and they know that we are aware they are here. Therefore we must neutralize them before they can neutralize us.”

“Channa Ti, there are three of us,” the Sylph rebutted. “We've seen at least five times that many Heart Cutters. Rees's gang today had nine people in it, including two full-blood Orcs! If her employer can keep ones like that in line, then we can assume there are more where they came from. We are not the greatest threat to either faction and they both know it! If we pull back right now we can get clear of all of it. Maybe do something with our time that actually matters.”

“Something that matters? You mean like finding Drinma?”

The Sylph's big eyes narrowed a slashing look her way. “She is in trouble, Channa Ti! Why am I the only one who sees that?”

“Why are you the only one who _doesn't_ see that it was just a pickpocket attempt gone wrong?”

“No!”

“Yes! And when she realized she was outclassed by you, what did she do? She changed tactics, bided her time, did whatever you wanted her to do. And when you finally let your guard down, she completed the robbery she set out to do in the first place.”

Channa Ti could tell her blow had landed, but Simoun scoffed. “Do you even know what you sound like?”

“I'm sorry, did I invent that whole tactic just now? Am I the first person who has ever come up with it? Or is it just the kind of thing that thieves do?”

“You didn't see her the way I did, Channa! She wanted to go with us! She wanted it so bad she could taste it. Something stopped her. Something she's afraid of. When she realized what it might do, she ran from us.”

Simoun scanned the rooftops of Wati, as though she could wish Drinma into sprinting across them before her. “You want something that probably knows about us by now and needs to be neutralized, there it is. You want an innocent whose fate we are complicit in if we don't help her, there she is.”

Channa Ti folded her hands and looked out across the rooftops as well. “Let's say you do run into her again out there and it turns out that I'm right. What will you do then?”

“You think I don't want you to be right?” the Sylph asked bitterly. “I'd let her rob me a hundred times over it meant she wasn't in danger or being hurt.”

Channa Ti had traveled with Simoun long enough now to that she enjoyed robbing but did not like being robbed herself. That she would say such a thing so freely and so passionately was outside her character. She was contemplating how gravely she had underestimated Simoun's true feelings for the girl and what that meant for herself when her companion unexpectedly and jarringly changed the subject.

“Have you and Rees... Ever?”

“What? No! Good grief, no! Why would you think that?”

Simoun gave what tried too hard to be a nonchalant shrug. “She made that remark about you sleeping in the middle. Like she knew.”

“ _I_ didn't even know until I met you. No, Rees was just trying to be insulting and did not realize she was saying something that is perfectly true and that I am not ashamed of.”

She placed her hand upon Simoun's bare thigh, the blue-white flesh pleasantly cool beneath her hot touch. “You were my first, Simoun. That is not a lie.”

For the first time in days, Simoun smiled, but a breeze carried it away quickly. “It was still an awfully specific remark. Maybe she does know about us. If she has been spying on us then Seelah is right. We should move.”

“She would have to have been spying on us for a long time to learn that about us. I mean, it has been a few weeks since we...” 

Channa Ti's fingers moved ever so slightly on Simoun's legs. She felt the shiver in the other woman's body and her own body began to respond in kind before she could stop it.

“I'm sorry I haven't been very much fun,” Simoun replied, gazing longingly upon her lover's brown hand upon her pale thigh. “I'm sorry if I've kept you and Seelah from enjoying each other.”

“It doesn't feel right enjoying it while we know you are not okay.”

Simoun smiled softly as their faces drifted near one another. “So that means you understand what I feel about Drinma.”

“Yes. I suppose that means I do.” Channa Ti dared let her fingers drift through Simoun's long platinum hair: something she had not been able to do for far too long. “Maybe we can see if you are right and if she does need help. Maybe we can all talk about it after the three of us take care of each other a little bit first?”

“We have to go back down to the room? I'm game for you to have me right here on this rooftop, even if people can see us. There's something I didn't tell you about the night I brought Drinma back to our room. I discovered that I like being watched.”

After melting back out of the kiss Channa Ti initiated, the Druid replied, “I'd like you to tell me all about it. But for now, yes we must go back down to the room. This is something all three of us need to do, and you know that Seelah trying to climb is like turtles trying to mate.”

Simoun grinned. “It happens, but very slowly? Yes, I know. But I would not compare her actual mating skills to those of a turtle. They are excellent and I have missed them very much.”

The Druid grinned. “Oh, she definitely means for you to enjoy them. I know that.” Her grin then turned positively delightfully wicked. “And I'll be watching.”

Simoun couldn't put her sandals back on fast enough after hearing that. But she did stop Channa Ti just as the other made ready to drop onto the balcony of their rented room. “Wait, before we go... What Seelah said earlier, about not maiming people and all that. Do you think I was wrong?”

“I know Rees well enough to know she did not deserve to be maimed. It's too good for her. You should have killed her.”

The Rogue smirked. “Why does everyone think I wasn't trying to?”

Dark, grim humor. Bloodlust. The will to kill. Channa Ti felt a warm thrill remembering all the reasons why she loved this woman.

The two of them descended room as sunset turned to night. It was a compromise of sorts. The factions of Wati struggled unceasingly, and the trio's role in it did not end. But the struggle would not miss Channa Ti, Seelah, and Simoun for just this one night.

The End


End file.
